Friday, July 17, 2009

"I need you, now"

.A dark bedroom, sprawled across the bed in fitful sleep. A knock on the bedroom door. "I need you, now".

Come conscious with a blast of adrenalin, "I'll be right there".

Toss aside the tangled cover, damndamn shediedshedied damn as I find clothes enough to let me stagger down the hall. She's hadn't died while I struggled to sleep..... She was half on and half off the couch, hospital bed abandoned for some reason. Her husband barely able to keep her from sliding to the floor. She, too weak to help, too weak to speak, just too....weak.

I kneel on the couch, pushing aside the dog confused by all the commotion he doesn't understand. Lucky dog. Hands under arms, sliding dead weight up onto the couch by using my own weight as leverage. Modesty gone on all counts, no time for it any more. Just the need to make it right without causing pain, and thankful for the Vicoden she's taking. All the strength I have, as gently as I can, but every last bit I can bring forth from a sleep deprived state.

She's up... back.... sighs... looks up a silent thanks at me.

I stagger back to bed, and fall across it. Mind catching up to the last few minutes, breathing out the adrenalin as my body shudders from it's burst of exertion, after being called from a dead sleep just moments before.

I reach for my cell phone, to see the time. 1:58am. Only an hour ago... I had fallen asleep.

Minutes pass, as I willfully push myself to shut back down. Just go back to sleep you sonofabitch. Just sleep.

My Mother died of cancer in 1967 a couple of months after I turned 20. I had just finished my Sophomore year and had come home between the Spring and Summer sessions. My Mother had been fighting cancer since it was first discovered in 1960. Surgery and radiation treatments had slowed the progress but the final time was near.

She was in a nearby hospital. My Dad stayed with her during the day while I slept, did chores on the Farm. Then he would come home and I'd take my place during the night. My sister taught high school 80 miles away and her school was still in session.

I still remember sitting there in the darken room listening to her breath and wondering if the next would be her last. I never want to go through that again.

I knew when I read this, that it was not fiction but your reality. However, the way you wrote it created a story. Doesn't most of our reality become a story at some point? The good, the bad and the indifferent. You have a talent for putting yours into very compelling words. Words that touch others as you see from the comment above. The genre worked very well.

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?"

-- (Terry Pratchett, Mort)

That's MY job around here

Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot".

-- (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)

On nights such as these the gods, as has already been pointed out, play games other than chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings. It is important to remember that they always cheat, right up to the end...

-- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)

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